“Nobody has a better sense of the colloquial American idiom.
Nobody among her contemporaries writes better poems about urban working-class
life. And she can surprise you, too, as in the following poem.”
—Ed Ochester
after sex on a train
canadian rockies fill
my window I am naked
eating blueberry muffins
sipping coke and smelling sperm
lakes and pines no birds fly past
I think of wild blueberries
bleeding juice through pale yellow
the yellow that’s almost white
my calves bruised from holding on
rivers moving swollen white
rail ties lie in piles and I
sniff the musk that we all want
telephone poles bending toward
water the white birch the pines
— Jan Beatty
“after sex on a train” from Mad River
Pittsburgh Press
Pitt Poetry Series:
Red Sugar $14.00
Series.